I am a dealer, specialising in Russian Area Philately. You can contact me at
patemantrevor@gmail.com
You can find material from my specialised stock in the regular online auction at www.filateliapalvelu.com and also in the auctions of heinrich-koehler.de which are held in Wiesbaden.
The 500+ posts on this Blog are being edited into book format. Go to the Blog post for 1 February 2020 to find out more.

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Friday, 13 March 2020

For the past year, I
have been preparing for the international stamp exhibition LONDON 2020. I’ve
been buying new stock and reducing prices on old stock so that I can have an
attractive stand display. My stand is in a prominent position, right next to the
(very good) cafe in London’s attractive exhibition hall, the Business Design
Centre. I have booked and pre-paid for a hotel for eight nights. Quite soon, I
need to recruit temporary assistants or volunteers to work on my stand with me and allow me an occasional break (I'm 72). I have been looking forward to meeting and greeting visitors from all over the
world…..

Now I don’t know how
things will turn out and I am inviting Comment from my readers.

Update 18 March 2020: Thanks to readers who left Comments. Now I do know how things will turn out. Click to read this statement from the organisers:; I think they have made the right decision and early enough for many people to be able to cancel or change flight and hotel bookings:

Sunday, 8 March 2020

In the nineteenth
century, quarantine was always in the news. All travel involved risks and in
areas like the Mediterranean and Black Sea where large movements of people were
part of everyday commercial life, authorities monitored people and ships constantly. Letters
going from A to B were disinfected on the way if it was believed that A was in the
grip of some outbreak of infectious disease. Ships could only enter port when
granted certification that they ware disease-free. And so on.

In the forthcoming sale
of the Christou collection at Heinrich Koehler Wiesbaden there are a large
number of lots which relate to quarantine, notably certificates issued under
the denomination of Patente de Santé. Some
are issued by Russian authorities and some by Ottoman, some are in Russian and Arabic, some in French. Here are a few examples:

Click on Image to Enlarge

Of course, you may be
quarantined and unable to view these lots in Wiesbaden. But fortunately there
is no quarantine on viewing online or bidding online …. All the lots are
illustrated at the link below:

Thursday, 5 March 2020

Many auction houses
produce catalogues which have separate sections for “Single Lots” and “Collections”.
I think the general idea is to point collectors towards the single lots and
dealers to the collections. In Germany, the distinction is also marked by
different colour paper: single lots [Einzellosen]
are listed on white pages and collections [Sammlungen]
on yellow pages - Gelbeseiten.

In the past, material on yellow pages would be sold on the same day, convenient for dealers who wanted to (and in the past, did) bid in person.

My advice now to both
collectors and dealers is to ignore the Single Lot/ Collections system. It is never used consistently
- you can find “Single Lots” containing ten items and “Collections” containing
two. And it often involves putting “collector” material into dealer sections,
though perhaps less so vice versa.

I was reminded of this
today when I received my latest and very interesting Heinrich Koehler Hauptkatalog [Main Catalogue]. Most of
the white pages describe lots in English, though Austria, Switzerland and
the very big Germany section are in German. All
of the yellow pages describe lots using German, as if they might only be of
interest to German dealers who will all turn up on the appointed day as they always have done ....

Collectors will easily miss out if they ignore the Yellow Pages. I will pick a couple of examples where I am
familiar with the material because I am the vendor J

For Russia and the
Soviet Union, there are over eighty yellow page lots (Los Nr 4281 - 4308). Most
are indeed album collections and quite big cover lots and many will not
interest a collector who already has a collection and a clear collecting theme.
But then look at Los Nr 4307:

1920
2 Parcel Cards and one Money Transfer Form in new Soviet printings, scarce from
this early period. Start price 100€

BUT this small lot is
unlikely to excite a Yellow Page-focussed dealer; it is very specialised and
will I think only excite a collector who understands a bit about Russian formulars and
maybe guesses that these post-Imperial formulars will (for example) not show the Imperial coat of
arms. Three examples of new post-revolutionary designs is not going to be too many for a serous
collector to want to see or own.

Here’s another example.
There are two lots for Iran. The first (4408) is a duplicated collection for
the whole period 1876-1956. Good yellow page stuff. But the second item (
4409) is rather different:

1886
18 Postal Stationery cut outs of 5 Ch on pieces with postmarks of 14 different
places, on a written-up album page
Start price 200 €

Now this might interest
a dealer who thinks they can sell these 18 items one-by-one. After all, they are catalogued as an issue. Equally, what is
being described is really just one specialist item: its evidence that the
officially-authorised stationery cut outs - used as provisionals during a stamp
shortage - can be found used from at least these 14 places. If I was a classic Persia
collector and did not already have a similar album page I would jump at this lot.

So take my advice, if
you are a collector don’t ignore the yellow pages even if you need a dictionary
to help you out. There are many more interesting items where I found these two .... Happy hunting!